


Feeling

by Saud



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-Canon, Touching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saud/pseuds/Saud
Summary: Kieren tells Simon he's starting to feel again.





	Feeling

"You can feel that?" Simon says, reaching up to touch Kieren's face. He's kneeling on the floor in front of Kieren, his eyes wide and voice raspy.

"Yeah," Kieren says, "A bit. The feeling's better in my torso... area." He waves his hand over his chest and stomach.

"There?" Simon says, placing his hand flat against Kieren's chest.

Kieren sucks in a breath even though he doesn't need to breathe. Then it feels natural to let it out again.

"Yeah, there," Kieren says.

"Anywhere else?" Simon asks. It could have been an innocent inquiry, if not for the smirk blooming on his lips.

"Not so much  _there_ , but you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Kieren responds. He gets up off the musty old couch. Simon rises too, dead bones creaking.

Kieren walks past Simon but the latter catches up and plants himself in front of Kieren like a monolith.

"I don't know whether to be jealous or ecstatic," Simon says. He looks serious, as he often does when he's being anything but.

"Ecstatic? Why would you be ecstatic?"

Kieren leans forward, so close to Simon but not touching him, their lips inches apart, teasing him with something he can never fully have, resurrecting the ghost of a memory from a past life, of kissing someone else. That's where they go when they kiss, at least to some extent. They try to remember the sensation, to remember it from someone else. Kieren goes to Rick. He doesn't know where Simon goes.

"Because then I can watch your reaction when I do this."

"Do wh--" before Kieren can finish his question, Simon's hand is under his jumper. Simon is pushing him back. He goes with it, steps back until he's pressed against the tacky wallpaper. He can actually  _feel_ Simon's hand against his chest. If he was still human he'd have goosebumps.

"Was my reaction what you were looking for?" Kieren asks, putting his hands on Simon's shoulders.

Simon hums. "Yes," he says, "Your lips parted deliciously and your eyes stared at me hungrily."

"Are you sure you're not projecting?" Kieren asks, "Or maybe misinterpreting my reaction to your cold hand."

"Quite sure," Simon says. He snakes his hand around to Kieren's back, runs his fingers up and down Kieren's spine.

Kieren's breathing grows ragged against Simon's neck. He hadn't realized how touch-starved he'd been when he couldn't feel.

Wait -- his _breathing_? Why is he breathing? He doesn't have to do that anymore. He tries to stop it but can't. The breaths come in gasps when he tries to hold them.

Then he feels Simon stiffen in his grasp, Simon's hand pause in its journey up his back. He feels Simon jerk away as if Kieren had hit him. His white-grey irises look small in his widened eyes.

"Your heart -- I felt it beat."

Kieren never knew a whisper could be so loud. His hand slams to his own chest. It's still save for the rising and falling of his useless breaths. Simon must have been mistaken.

Then Kieren feels it. A single beat. Weak and stuttering. Then a few seconds later it's followed by another.

He can feel the sludge that sat still for years in his veins start to move. His body feels like a naked tree awakening to the spring.

His knees are weak and he feels them bend. Then there's Simon's cold, cold hands cupping his face, steadying him, grounding him.

"Kieren, are you alright?"

His hand is still over his heart, feeling it kick out a few feeble beats. Then a few not-so-feeble beats. He feels his pulse steady into something resembling a rhythm -- "Kieren, love, are you alright?" -- then he feels it quicken.

"I think I'm alive."


End file.
